The instructables contest got extended until July 13. Do you guys know what this means? Chives will be completely done with image processing and sonar finished and added on. It was supposed to end in another 3 hours and I was working my butt off for the past 4 hours and the last few nights. I'll post videos tomorrow but I will give you guys a glimpse of Chives with the gripper and drink pourer.Remember to vote for me in the Instructables contest ,I'll post up a link when I publish the tutorial. Thanks.

Right now he can pour a drink , open a drink, close gripper --- but only from a manual control of laptop , not yet voice command.By voice command he can only tell time ,tell weather, tell temperature , have somewhat of a conversation , and move forward, right,left, backward.

If anyone else has any requests for what he should do , speak up I got two extra weeks to work on it.

PLEASE VOTE FOR ME IN THE INSTRUCTABLES CONTEST!!!!! I worked extremely hard to make a tutorial that anyone can follow . I put a ton of pictures and a lot of steps , so YOU TOO can build your own butler robot!

I will post the code and videos this weekend . The bill of materials will be posted up later today.

The contest deadline is July 13 , so if anybody has anything they want to say about my robot , say it now!

Also, I just wrote a Module in VB6 that lets Chives speak with one commande.g. Speak "Hello_Everybody"

This allows me to add new commands in minutes. If anybody has any ideas what he should say , post it up.

He can now tell you the time, weather conditions, and temperature. Also he will say Good Morning (or afternoon or night depending on the time). And also there are just the commands like pour a drink, go forward 1 unit, etc.

He should know his own battery levels and say when hes running low. unless he can self-dock!

Thats a good idea, I'll try to do that battery level speech , thanks pomprocker! .

The self-docking is doable( i've done it small scale) But I am scared to self-dock on Chives, since Chives charges with a lot of amperage ( like 10Amps to charge ) plus his batteries are 20ah each. So until I develop a system which is very safe and has a safety factor of like 100, then I'll scale up and have him self charge.

@ go for 1 unitI think it would be beneficial to have him understand units of measure. so instead of "1 unit", say "1 foot" or "1 foot and 3 inches" or "15 inches" or whatever. That way its a simple matter of wheel rotation count times the circumference of the wheel. Maybe even have some fun with it and say move forward 3 rotations Just my thoughts on that

You want complete home automation? I'd try for Linux MCE. They incorporated some home automation software into it, so you can control the lights, blinds, TV, and everything else at the touch of a button. You can do it from a cell phone, or from Chives! Id suggest making him look really slick with some brushed aluminum skin and a touchscreen LCD in his chest. LOL...that would be so awesome having a robot that controlled your house talking to you with a TV right there for you to watch...lol.

You see my poor Grandma and Grandpa could have used Chives. Tear jerker story coming...

They are both passed now. My bedridden Grandpa for 7-14 years after he had a stroke and lost all function of his legs, left side of his body and arms. Your Chives is a great concept for people in this state.

you could turn him into like a solar cow so that he goes and "sun grazes" while your not home to like trickle charge.

if you wanted him to keep track of certain objects you could use RFID tags.But RFID tags have a bad rep.

You could put either an encoder on your toliet paper, or have a limit switch that presses up against the roll and then when you run out he could switch it.

You could add a mixed drink function.

Last upgrade idea. Have him recognize the difference between men and women, and have it make fun of you while women are around and flatter them. you know like, excuse me miss but your dress is just exquesite or something like that.